#12-Formalization

August 18, 2025

➘ #12 Source Article

Symbolic Logic Reconstruction

$P_1:$ If God is omnipotent and compassionate, then God is independent of human financial resources.
Annotation: An all-powerful and compassionate God would not need money to accomplish His purposes.

$P_2:$ If God is independent of financial resources, then divine institutions should operate without financial dependency.
Annotation: A God who does not need money would ensure His institutions reflect this independence.

$P_3:$ Christian institutions exhibit financial dependency (tithes, salaries, buildings, campaigns).
Annotation: Churches rely on money in the same way human institutions do.

$P_4: , \forall R , (R \in \text{world religions} \rightarrow R \text{ exhibits financial dependency})$
Annotation: All known religions rely on financial or material offerings.

$P_5:$ If Christianity exhibits the same financial dependency as other religions, then it fails to uniquely differentiate itself as divinely authored.
Annotation: If Christianity mirrors other religions in financial matters, it loses its strongest possible evidence of divine origin.

$P_6:$ Likelihoodist principle: Evidence favoring one hypothesis over another depends on relative explanatory power.
Annotation: Comparative reasoning should favor the hypothesis that better accounts for the evidence.

$H_1: \text{Christian institutions are divinely authored.}$
$H_2: \text{Christian institutions are human-authored.}$
Annotation: Two competing hypotheses are under consideration.

$E: \text{Christian institutions exhibit financial dependency.}$
Annotation: The observed evidence is the reliance of churches on money.

$L(E|H_1) \ll L(E|H_2)$
Annotation: The probability of observing financial dependency is much lower under the divine-authorship hypothesis than under the human-authorship hypothesis.

$C: E , \Rightarrow , H_2 \text{ is strongly favored over } H_1$
Annotation: Given the evidence, the human-authorship hypothesis is far more likely than the divine-authorship hypothesis.

Symbols and predicates used

$g$
Annotation: $g$ denotes the Christian God as typically described in the paper.

$\mathrm{Omni}(g)$
Annotation: $\mathrm{Omni}(g)$ means $g$ is omnipotent (and, by context, omniscient and omnipresent).

$\mathrm{Comp}(g)$
Annotation: $\mathrm{Comp}(g)$ means $g$ is compassion-oriented (aims at alleviating suffering).

$\mathrm{Indep}(g)$
Annotation: $\mathrm{Indep}(g)$ means $g$ is independent of human financial resources (category-level money independence).

$\mathrm{Inst}(x)$
Annotation: $\mathrm{Inst}(x)$ means $x$ is a Christian institutional activity or organ (e.g., churches, missions, clergy systems).

$\mathrm{FD}(x)$
Annotation: $\mathrm{FD}(x)$ means $x$ exhibits financial dependency (tithes, salaries, building funds, campaigns).

$\mathrm{Auth_D}(\mathrm{Inst})$
Annotation: $\mathrm{Auth_D}(\mathrm{Inst})$ means the Christian institutional order is divinely authored/orchestrated.

$\mathrm{Auth_H}(\mathrm{Inst})$
Annotation: $\mathrm{Auth_H}(\mathrm{Inst})$ means the Christian institutional order is human-authored.

$E$
Annotation: $E$ is the total evidence that Christian institutions exhibit pervasive financial dependency.

Core premises

$P_1: \ (\mathrm{Omni}(g)\wedge \mathrm{Comp}(g)) \rightarrow \mathrm{Indep}(g)$
Annotation: If $g$ is both all-powerful and compassion-oriented, then $g$ would not depend on human money to achieve aims.

$P_2: \ \mathrm{Indep}(g) \rightarrow \forall x,(\mathrm{Inst}(x)\rightarrow \neg \mathrm{FD}(x))$
Annotation: If $g$ is money-independent, then institutions genuinely authored by $g$ would conspicuously operate without financial dependency.

$P_3: \ E \equiv \exists x,(\mathrm{Inst}(x)\wedge \mathrm{FD}(x))$
Annotation: The observed fact is that at least one (indeed many) Christian institutional entities depend on money.

$P_4: \ \mathrm{Auth_D}(\mathrm{Inst}) \rightarrow (\mathrm{Omni}(g)\wedge \mathrm{Comp}(g))$
Annotation: If the Christian institutional order is divinely authored, it is authored by a deity with the standard attributes claimed for $g$ .

Fitch-style derivation (natural deduction)

$1.\quad (\mathrm{Omni}(g)\wedge \mathrm{Comp}(g)) \rightarrow \mathrm{Indep}(g) \quad \text{Premise }(P_1)$
Annotation: From the paper’s reasoning, unlimited power plus compassion entails money-independence for $g$ .

$2.\quad \mathrm{Indep}(g) \rightarrow \forall x,(\mathrm{Inst}(x)\rightarrow \neg \mathrm{FD}(x)) \quad \text{Premise }(P_2)$
Annotation: If $g$ is independent of money, that independence should be reflected in the institutional footprint attributed to $g$ .

$3.\quad \exists x,(\mathrm{Inst}(x)\wedge \mathrm{FD}(x)) \quad \text{Premise }(P_3)$
Annotation: Empirically, churches, missions, and clergy systems do depend on money.

$4.\quad \mathrm{Auth_D}(\mathrm{Inst}) \rightarrow (\mathrm{Omni}(g)\wedge \mathrm{Comp}(g)) \quad \text{Premise }(P_4)[$
Annotation: Divine authorship of the Christian institutional order brings in the standard divine attributes for $g$ .

$5.\ \ \mathrm{Assume}\ \mathrm{Auth_D}(\mathrm{Inst})$
Annotation: Assume divine authorship of the institutional order $\mathrm{Auth_D}(\mathrm{Inst})$ .

$6.\ (\mathrm{Omni}(g)\wedge \mathrm{Comp}(g)) \ \ (\text{from }4,5)$
Annotation: From $4$ and the assumption in $5$ , infer $\mathrm{Omni}(g)\wedge \mathrm{Comp}(g)$ .

$7.\ \mathrm{Indep}(g) \ \ (\text{from }1,6)$
Annotation: From $1$ and $6$ , infer money-independence of $g$ .

$8.\ \forall x,(\mathrm{Inst}(x)\rightarrow \neg \mathrm{FD}(x)) \ \ (\text{from }2,7)$
Annotation: If $g$ is independent, genuine institutions lack financial dependence.

$9.\ \mathrm{Inst}(c)\wedge \mathrm{FD}(c) \ \ (\exists\text{-elim on }3)$
Annotation: Choose a concrete case $c$ from the observed evidence.

$10.\ \mathrm{Inst}(c) \ \ (\wedge\text{-elim on }9)$
Annotation: Extract the institutional part.

$11.\ \mathrm{FD}(c) \ \ (\wedge\text{-elim on }9)$
Annotation: Extract the financial-dependence part.

$12.\ \mathrm{Inst}(c)\to \neg \mathrm{FD}(c)\ \ (\forall\text{-elim on }8)$
Annotation: Specialize the universal in line $8$ to $c$ .

$13.\ \neg \mathrm{FD}(c)\ \ (\to\text{-elim on }12,10)$
Annotation: Apply modus ponens to get $\neg \mathrm{FD}(c)$ .

$14.\ \bot\ \ (\text{from }11,13)$
Annotation: Contradiction from $\mathrm{FD}(c)$ and $\neg \mathrm{FD}(c)$ .

$15.\ \neg \mathrm{Auth_D}(\mathrm{Inst})\ \ (\neg\text{-intro discharging }5\text{--}14)$
Annotation: Assuming $\mathrm{Auth_D}(\mathrm{Inst})$ yields a contradiction with the observed $E$ (money dependence). Therefore, $\neg \mathrm{Auth_D}(\mathrm{Inst})$ follows.

Consequent disjunction

$16.\quad \mathrm{Auth_D}(\mathrm{Inst}) \lor \mathrm{Auth_H}(\mathrm{Inst}) \quad \text{Exhaustive authorship schema}$
Annotation: Given the dialectic in the paper, either the institutional order is divinely authored or human authored.

$17.\quad \neg \mathrm{Auth_D}(\mathrm{Inst}) \quad \text{from }15$
Annotation: We derived the negation of divine authorship from the inconsistency with $E$ .

$18.\quad \mathrm{Auth_H}(\mathrm{Inst}) \quad \lor\text{-Elim/Disjunctive syllogism on }16,17$
Annotation: Therefore, human authorship is the live option in the disjunction.

Missed-differentiation lemma

$L_1:\ \ \mathrm{Indep}(g)\ \Rightarrow\ \text{Salient differentiation from all money-dependent religions}$
Annotation: If $g$ were money-independent, Christianity would cleanly differentiate itself from other traditions that exhibit $\mathrm{FD}$ .

$L_2:\ \ E\ \Rightarrow\ \text{No such differentiation is observed}$
Annotation: Observing $E$ means the clearest differentiator is forfeited in practice.

Likelihoodist addendum (comparative confirmation)

$H_1 := \mathrm{Auth_D}(\mathrm{Inst}) \wedge \mathrm{Omni}(g)\wedge \mathrm{Comp}(g)$
Annotation: $H_1$ encodes divine authorship with the usual attributes claimed for $g$ .

$H_2 := \mathrm{Auth_H}(\mathrm{Inst})$
Annotation: $H_2$ encodes human authorship of Christian institutions.

$\mathcal{L}(E\mid H_1) \ll \mathcal{L}(E\mid H_2)$
Annotation: Given $H_1$ , we expect $\neg E$ (institutional money-independence), so $E$ is antecedently unlikely; given $H_2$ , $E$ is antecedently likely.

$\text{BF}_{12}(E)=\dfrac{P(E\mid H_1)}{P(E\mid H_2)} \ll 1$
Annotation: The Bayes factor for $H_1$ versus $H_2$ given $E$ is far less than $1$ , which strongly favors $H_2$ on the observed facts.

$E \Rightarrow H_2 \text{ is strongly favored over } H_1$
Annotation: Conditional on $E$ , comparative confirmation supports the human-authorship hypothesis over divine authorship.

Closing schema

$C:\ \ (\mathrm{Omni}(g)\wedge \mathrm{Comp}(g)\wedge \mathrm{Auth_D}(\mathrm{Inst})) \ \text{is incompatible with} \ E$
Annotation: The triad of divine attributes plus divine authorship clashes with the observed institutional money dependence $E$ .

$C':\ \ E \Rightarrow \neg \mathrm{Auth_D}(\mathrm{Inst}) \ \wedge \ \mathrm{Auth_H}(\mathrm{Inst})$
Annotation: Therefore, given $E$ , divine authorship is rejected and human authorship is inferred as the best explanation.

◉ A plain English walkthrough of the symbolic logic above.

Premises

If God is omnipotent and compassionate, then He must be independent of human financial resources.
A truly unlimited and benevolent being doesn’t need money to achieve His goals.
If God is financially independent, then His institutions would show no signs of financial dependence.
Divine institutions would not rely on tithes, salaries, or building funds.
But in fact, Christian institutions do rely on money.
This is the empirical evidence (tithes, salaries, campaigns, etc.).
If Christian institutions are divinely authored, then God’s attributes (omnipotence and compassion) apply.
Accepting divine authorship commits us to those attributes.

Deduction (Fitch-style steps 5–15)

Assume Christian institutions are divinely authored.
Start with this as a test assumption.
Therefore, God must be omnipotent and compassionate.
From (4) and the assumption.
Therefore, God must be financially independent.
From (1) and step (6).
Therefore, all divine institutions must show no financial dependence.
From (2) and step (7).
But consider a concrete case: some church c is financially dependent.
From the evidence (3).
So church c is a genuine institution.
From (9).
And church c is financially dependent.
Also from (9).
But step (8) requires: if church c is an institution, then it is not financially dependent.
Specialization of the universal in (8).
Therefore, church c is not financially dependent.
From (10) and (12).
Contradiction.
Step (11) said “c is financially dependent,” step (13) said “c is not financially dependent.”
Therefore, the assumption in step (5) is false.
We must conclude that Christian institutions are not divinely authored.

Exhaustive Options

Either institutions are divinely authored or human authored.
Since we just showed they cannot be divinely authored, it follows they must be human authored.

Likelihoodist Add-On

Hypothesis $H_1$ : Christian institutions are divinely authored.
Hypothesis $H_2$ : Christian institutions are human authored.
Evidence $E$ : Institutions are financially dependent.
The probability of $E$ given $H_1$ is low (we would not expect financial dependence under divine authorship).
The probability of $E$ given $H_2$ is high (financial dependence is exactly what we expect from human institutions).
Therefore, $H_2$ is strongly favored over $H_1$ .

Conclusion

In plain terms:

If God truly authored Christianity, we should expect to see churches operating without financial dependence.
Instead, we see heavy reliance on money, just like all human institutions.
This produces a contradiction under divine authorship but flows naturally under human authorship.
Thus, the observed evidence overwhelmingly supports the conclusion that Christian institutions are of human origin, not divine.

◉ Prose Version:

The logic of the argument is straightforward. If God is truly omnipotent and compassionate, He would not need financial resources from humans to accomplish His aims. An all-powerful being could spread His message, build community, and alleviate suffering without the machinery of money. From this it follows that if Christianity were divinely authored, its institutions would be conspicuously free from financial dependence.

Yet the reality is the opposite. Churches rely on tithes, clergy salaries, building funds, and fundraising campaigns in ways that are structurally identical to human organizations. Taking even one example—any church that depends on money—creates a contradiction with what we would expect under divine authorship. This shows that the assumption of divine authorship cannot be sustained. The only live alternative is that Christianity’s institutions are human inventions.

When weighed through likelihood reasoning, the picture becomes even clearer. If divine authorship were true, we would not expect to see financial dependence at all, so the actual evidence counts heavily against that hypothesis. But if Christianity is human-authored, financial dependency is exactly what we would predict. The evidence therefore strongly favors human authorship over divine authorship.

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